


Merrily, Merrily

by heyshalina



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Confusion, Darkness Around Stiles's Heart, Derek Leaves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Insanity, Lose Your Mind, M/M, Manpain, McCall Pack, Mentions of Sterek, Minor Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Nemeton, Nightmares, Post season 3a, Pre-Slash, Sacrifice, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Voicemail, episode tag s3e12, minor sheriff stilinksi/melissa mccall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyshalina/pseuds/heyshalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post season 3a. After the events with the Sacrifice and Derek leaving, everyone tries to get their feet back on solid ground. Stiles, Scott, and Allison, however, still feel the darkness.</p>
<p>And Stiles begins to learn that sanity is...ephemeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merrily, Merrily

**Author's Note:**

> Well, Teen Wolf is coming back in a little more than a week...and I am completely not ready. Not at all.
> 
> This started out as a drabble awhile back after I watched the season 3a finale, and then the new trailers came out, and my imagination went...somewhere.
> 
> As always, any and all feedback is greatly welcomed and will make my heart smile.

Stiles blinks awake, eyelids parting and closing languidly. It’s dark. Really dark. Wha...why?

“Dad,” Stiles slurs shifting uncomfortably, whining as a sharp pain laces through his temples. He...was he late for school? Did he get drunk? Who had be been with? Scott? Derek…

Car. In the car.

He can’t see a thing. ‘s too dark, too dark.

His heart throbs. His eyes feel as if they’re being sucked into a black hole.

Too dark…

He opens the door, immediately assaulted by the sounds of harsh wind and impending dark. Stiles manages one step before darkness (not darkness, just blankness, no, there’re things much, much darker) envelops him.

.

Stiles gasps awake, eyes flying open into darkness. He smells smoke, and gags, rolling over. He’s on the ground, can feel wet leaves and pointy sticks beneath him. When did he...where was he? Stiles groans, shifting slowly onto his knees, trying to banish the throbbing in his head. He lifts a hand up to his hairline, feels something sticky. Sticky like jello, stuck on the fridge, but that’s okay, Mommy says, don’t worry, hon, it’s okay.

He opens his eyes. Red. Lots of red, different shades, different hues. One warm, another hot, too hot when it’s so dark.

Fire. There’s fire, Derek, get out.

Stiles grabs around blindly, finds the smooth metal of his Jeep, all dented and out of place, and slowly drags himself up, eyes half closed. There’s smoke coming from the front of his Jeep, and that can’t be good, but he can’t figure out why. It’s too dark inside, and he feels threatened, so he grabs the seat inside the car, grabs and searches until hands meet cool metal and he pulls his baseball bat from the passenger seat, knuckles turning white as he holds it tightly against him. He backs up from the car, stumbling, and turns toward the woods. There’s too much darkness on the road, too much wind and darkness and fire, so he stumbles toward the trees, bat in one hand, his cell phone clutched tightly in the other. He realizes twenty yards in that he doesn’t know where he’s supposed to be going.

But he does.

Something screams in the back of his mind, something about _Dad_ and _Scott_ and _gotta help Daddy, gotta help_. Something else tugs at his heart, something painful, and he follows it, whining lowly as it stings and makes the edges of his vision darken. He walks for a very long while, and every few minutes he stops and tries to remember where he’s going, because obviously it’s bad, his brain wouldn’t hurt and his heart wouldn’t cry so much if it was a good place. The wind keeps getting stronger, and dirt keeps getting in his eyes, but he keeps walking.

The thrumming in his chest gets stronger and stronger, and he can see a clearing in the distance when it explodes as the wind does, bowling him over a fallen tree and onto the ground. The bat falls from his hands as he lands, the wind knocked out of him. Lighter-darkness, the blankness, encroaches, but he pushes it away, gasping in buckets of air and trying to clear his vision because it’s clear now, this nightmare is clear, and his dad is down there, near the thrumming and the darkness and he has to get him _out_.

He grips his cell phone tighter in his hands, squinting against the brightness of the screen, and presses the second button.

.

Later, when it’s all over (or so he thinks, Scotty, you fool), Scott looks at his phone, and blanches at the number of missed messages and voicemails shown there that he’s previously ignored, the pallor of his skin matching the white walls of the hopital around him. He presses the first one, and shakily holds the phone up to his ear.

“ _S’...ott. Scott_.” Stiles’s voice enters his eardrums, grainy and scared, drowned out by wind. “ _Buddy. Scott. Uh…I think I messed up. I messed up p-pretty good. Can you call my dad? He-he’s no’ pickin’ up. Th...th’nks, Scott_.”

Beep. Scott’s heartbeat gallops up into his throat, and he casts a look over, across the hall. Isaac sits with Allison in uncomfortable chairs. He gives Scott a look, raising his eyebrows and looking from Scott to Derek, hunched in another chair, head hanging between his shoulders, and back again. Scott nods.

“ _I-I’m trying to find it. I can’t find it, it keeps leading me, but I can’t–Scott, I need some help, it’s got my dad. I think...I think it’s got your mom, too. It wants to keep them. We need to help_.”

Scott sighs, running a hand over his face. He traces the series of events of the night over in his head, thinks about the wreck one of the Deputies found on one of the roads, a Jeep crashed into a tree, burnt out and still burning. Thinks about how Stiles wasn’t in it.

“ _Okay. Yeah. I got it. I found it, I got it, I can help them now. Come by when you can, Scott, okay? I know...I know you and Derek, you guys are busy, you guys are always busy with stuff, werewolves and shit, yeah. But it’d be nice. Backup. Batman needs a Robin, ya know? Kay_.”

Batman needs a Robin.

Scott feels his eyes flash over red, and closes them, thinks about who’s who now.

.

“I hear them,” Isaac says, perking up as he coughs dirt out of his mouth. “Scott and Derek. They’re coming.”

“How far?” Sheriff Stilinski asks. Isaac concentrates for a minute. Allison grabs his hand, and Melissa narrows her eyes, taking in the sight.

“Not far.” He confirms. “They’re running. Only a few minutes.”

“Alright, we’ll get the ladies up first, then you kids,” The Sheriff states. Isaac furrows his eyebrows at him.

“No offense, sir, but…” His eyes flash gold. “I think I’m in better shape than you guys.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Stilinski shrugs.

“Isaac? Stiles?” A voice shouts. Isaac returns the frantic voice with a tone to match it. Scott’s face appears in one of the holes, eyes straining but smiling. “Thank God. Okay. Uh, Derek’s got a rope, we couldn’t get a ladder, but we’re gonna get you out. Mom, are you okay?”

“Just fine, hon.” Melissa smiles up at her son, wrapping her arms around herself. “I think.”

Scott beams. "How about you, Mr. Stilinski?"

"Nothing years of therapy won't fix," he replies, shifting to sit next to Melissa and putting one of his hands on hers. Scott's smile turns into a grimace.

“H-here,” Scott throws down a rope, and Melissa ties it around herself, with help from the Sheriff. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, okay?”

Derek and Scott begin to haul everyone up. Allison accepts help from Isaac, and the air becomes unnecessarily tense as everyone witnesses their almost intimate exchange. Scott rubs a hand over his face, and Isaac bites his lip. Allison smiles up at Scott, and they embrace as she emerges to stand on solid ground. As the rope drops down again Isaac tenses, shifting forward. The Sheriff’s hackles instantly rise.

“Stiles?” Isaac’s voice cracks.

Stilinski swings around toward his son, blood chilling as he sees that his eyes, formally alert and joyous, are closed, shoulder leaning on the crumbling piece of wood beside his baseball bat turned support. He grabs Stiles’s shoulders, and tries to swallow the bile rising in his throat as his son’s head lolls as he pulls him against him. It’s dark in the hole beneath the Nemeton, but the Sheriff can see the blood plastering the side of Stiles’s skull. He gulps, and wonders what happened. Demands himself to know why no one noticed before.

“Dad?” Stiles murmurs, nose in his dad’s shoulder. The Sheriff runs a hand over Stiles’s hair, breath ragged. The head wound is still bleeding. “Daddy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Stiles.” His voice wavers. “We’re gonna be just fine, alright?”

Isaac shuffles forward. “Is he okay?”

Stilinski raises his voice, even though he knows Scott and Derek can hear him. He knows that, now. “Stiles is next, you got that? Melissa, call 911.”

Melissa’s voice is shaky, too. “Already on it.”

He ties the rope around his son and palms his face, satisfied as blurry eyes gaze back at him. He can’t make out the size of Stiles’s pupils in the darkness, and resolves to do so once they’re in the moonlight. “We’re gonna be okay, son. You’re gonna be okay.”

Stiles nods against the Sheriff’s shirt. “Okay. Can we get curly fries?”

The Sheriff barks out a laugh, smiling. “Yeah, son. Large size, sauce and all.”

Stiles smirks slightly, closing his eyes comfortably. “I know you got kidnapped by an evil witch and everything, Dad, but…you still can’t have the sauce.”

“Figures.”

Stilinski smiles down at his son, and calls up to Scott to haul Stiles out, supporting him as far as he can reach. Isaac’s head is in his hands, and the Sheriff puts a hand on his shoulder. Chris Argent gives him a small nod, and it settles something heavy and indistinguishable in his chest.

When the Sheriff gets hauled out of the hellhole, he looks for his son, and finds him gathered on the ground in Derek Hale’s arms, forehead between Hale’s neck and shoulder, staining the skin red. Derek doesn’t seem to care, instead leans over and mutters soothing nothings into Stiles’s ear as the boy falls into sleep. Melissa is on the phone with the paramedics, and Allison hugs her father as Scott helps Isaac out. He stares at Derek and Stiles, and suddenly feels as if he’s the one out of place, there.

And that feels wrong.

.

When Stiles wakes up, his head feels heavy and sluggish, and it feels like Scott is sitting on his chest, weighing him down onto the bed. As he shifts and becomes more aware, awareness jerking him forward on a child’s leash like he’d misbehaved, he realizes three things:

1) He’s in a hospital,

2) No one is sitting on his chest (and somehow that’s worse), and

3) He’s alone.

Which is weird, because the last thing he remembers is Derek, whispering in his ear that it’d be okay. Which was also weird, because Derek didn’t tell people those kind of things. He was kind of a _grr, get over your manpain_ kind of guy. But it hadn’t been a dream, Stiles thinks; he’s pretty sure that what he remembers of the night before (what time is it, anyway?), however littered with blank spots and missing chunks, was real. He remembers Derek; he remembers Scott, and the Nemeton, and his dad–

God, his dad.

Suddenly, Stiles’s previously closed eyelids slam open, and the sheer amount of _white_ surrounding him nearly sends him back into happy sleep land, but he manages to remain conscious. His head whips around the room and geez, doesn’t that make him dizzy. There’s no one in the room, a private room, not the pediatric ward he usually gets when he has to come to the hospital because Dad can’t afford anything extra, they’re still paying back bills from Mom, and Stiles can’t see _anyone_. He remembers the baseball bat and he remembers Derek but everything in between is a blur, covered in darkness and pain, pain, pain.

He doesn’t know where his dad is. He doesn’t know whether his dad is dead or alive, he doesn’t know what happened, he just _doesn’t know_.

(and God, what if they’re all dead, what if he failed)

Stiles’s hands fumble at the edges of the sheets covering him, trembling fingers pulling back the fabric enough so that his uncooperative legs could slide out. His breath comes in short bursts and the whites of the room swim around him as he heaves himself up and out of the bed, something pulling at his hand. An alarm goes off faintly in the background of his attention as he stumbles forward and ultimately falls onto the ground, lungs failing him as the aspect races through his head. He thinks of his mom’s tombstone, her grave and the plot next to it, reserved for his father and he’s always hated that plot, hated it, because that meant that his father could die, would die, would leave Stiles behind in a world he wasn’t prepared to survive in, a world with werewolves and alphas, darachs and magic and darkness so dark, so overwhelming that it surrounds him in its embrace, wrapping around him and down his throat so he can’t breathe, he just _can’t breathe–_

(they’re dead, he’s dead, I killed them, I killed him, he’s gone)

The white around him is becoming speckled with black, blips of sparks and blotches of darkness that was so light in comparison that Stiles would have laughed, if he had any air to laugh with, because it was so _funny_. This used to be his worst nightmare, scaring himself to death, panicking and panicking until he just couldn’t breathe anymore but that’s funny now, because there are much worse things out there, darkness so much, so much darker.

(dead, all of them; Dad, Isaac, Allison, Chris, Ms. McCall, Lydia, Derek, Scott)

Someone says his name but it’s like he’s underwater, he can’t hear and he can’t breathe, he was never strong enough, not even strong enough to accept the bite because he was _too scared_ , and that was always his downfall, always _too scared_ and look at him now–

(I didn’t save them, I didn’t get there in time, it was a dream, it was all a dream)

“ _STILES_!” Someone screams and he gasps, air that’s not dead, that’s not dark entering his mouth. He gulps it in greedily, wiping the black spots out of his eyes and coughing into someone’s shirt as they rub his back. “That’s it, come on, son, breathe with me, breathe with me, you can do this, we’ve done this before, come on, there we go, you’re all right, there we go.”

Somewhere along the line Stiles’s coughs become sobs and then they even out, all into the shirt his face is pressed against, soft flannel, because he had to have gotten his horrible fashion sense from _someone_. He starts to laugh, and the person above him murmurs his name worriedly, but Stiles just laughs a little bit more.

“Dad,” He rasps, still chuckling, and then his father starts chuckling, the rumbling in his chest soothing Stiles, a large warm hand cradling the back of his head.

“Yeah, kid.” the Sheriff smiles into Stiles’s hair. “You did it. We’re okay, you got that? We’re okay.”

Stiles gulps back darkness and tries to believe it.

.

“They found your Jeep.” Scott offers, sitting in a chair beside Stiles’s bed. He’d been discharged from the hospital shortly after his panic attack personally by Scott’s mom with a relatively clear bill of health, scraping by with just a few busts and bruises, a moderate concussion, and a stern order to drink fluids and actually get some proper sleep for once in his life. Scott had come over everyday to see him, but they haven’t talked about anything. Not really.

Stiles nods. “My dad told me.”

“Allison’s dad thinks you’re a hero,” Scott chuckles. “Saved them from the storm, human and all.”

There’s envy behind Scott’s words, but its carefully veiled behind pride for his best friend and deliberate cheerfulness. He hastily continues. “Deaton’s impressed by how you found everyone after…after your crash. He says…he’s convinced–”

“That I’ve got some sort of ‘spark’, whatever that means, yeah.” Stiles cuts in. “I don’t know. I don’t think it was that.”

“What do you think it was?” Scott’s confused, which is normal, but never good. Stiles thinks about the never-ending throb in his chest, and how the Nemeton led him to his father by way of darkness. He’s sure that Scott feels it too; he must, he went through the sacrifice just like Stiles did. He’d understand, plus, he’s Stiles’s best friend. They tell each other everything.

At least, they used to.

Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but for once in his life, nothing comes out. He blinks, swallows. “How’s Isaac?”

Scott nods, eyes slightly narrowed. He’s not as dumb as he looks, crappy decisions aside, and Stiles knows he’s skeptical of what happened that night. Patchy memories flash in Stiles’s head of hurried phone calls and slurred voicemails, not just to Scott but to his dad, and Derek, as well.

“Okay.” Scott says, and then his face falls in that _I’m-a-puppy-someone-kicked-me_ sort of way. “He and Allison have been getting along really well.”

Stiles is a good friend, but he’s not in the mood to talk about Scott’s romantic failures. “I’m sure it was just a thing. Imminent parental death and all that. Great bonding.”

Scott scowls, and Stiles shifts under his covers. He backpedals and tries a different tactic. “And Derek? How’s that jerk, in all his new non-alpha-ness?”

It’s something they haven’t talked about; Derek’s fall from being an alpha, and Scott’s non-violent rise. Talking about it would imply that something had to be done about it, and neither of them were up to that yet. Stiles wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to recognize that his best friend Scott was a big bad alpha, ruler of the ragtag pack in Beacon Hills.

“Yeah, uh, Derek,” Scott clears his throat, and Stiles sits up a little straighter, alarm bells ringing in his head. “Derek and Cora, they took off yesterday. He told me to tell you. I think they’ve gone off…family road trip, soul-searching, I don’t know.”

Stiles’s breath chokes, and he’s angry, because he doesn’t know why. He forces his voice to stay even. “Is he coming back?”

Scott looks at the ground, wringing his hands. “I don’t know.” He admits. “I don’t know if he’s ever coming back.”

Stiles talks with Scott a little longer about school, getting a new car, the twins, and Lydia, but eventually the conversation becomes uncomfortable and peters out. Stiles waits until he’s sure Scott is gone before flipping his covers over his head and curling onto his side beneath the bedding. He grips his phone in his hand and stares at it, knuckles turning white around the plastic and Derek’s contact name on the screen.

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Stiles rasps to the phone, holding the phone to his bandaged forehead. He gives a small shudder and stares into the not-darkness of his room, pretending to be asleep when his dad comes home and checks on him hours later.

.

Stiles stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, taking in the sight of his face. He has to go back to school tomorrow, Dad’s orders. He’s got all of his work done, never quite got left behind in the first place, not like Scott, but there’s something else holding him back, something making him want to curl up in his bed and never leave the house again.

So he’s trying to find it in his face.

He’s paler now than ever before, which is ironic, with all the time he spends outside nowadays versus his freshman year, which was filled with World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. His birthmarks stand out on his face, which is cut off halfway up his forehead with a band of gauze wrapped around the base of his head, his grown-out hair sticking out over it in poofs. Stiles gingerly takes the medical tape securing it to his skull in his hands, unlatching the adhesive and slowly unraveling the gauze from his head. He drops it on the sink and stares at the scabbed-over wound on his hairline, matted with dried blood. He resists the urge to scratch at it and instead just continues to stare. He realizes that the color of the scab is similar to the color he associates with the throbbing in his chest. It makes him want to puke.

Stiles doesn’t remember coming in here. He wonders if he’s really there at all.

He goes into the shower to jack off but ends up sitting on the floor in the corner, letting the stream of water fall on his head and humming the slow tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” under his breath until his dad bangs on the door and asks if he’s okay.

He’s not sure how to answer.

.

Stiles opens his eyes to darkness. It isn’t the darkness of his bedroom without the lights on, or the smothering, choking darkness that has taken to following behind in him in footsteps. It’s a cold darkness. Something pure. Stiles rubs his eyes languidly, wondering if he even got his required two hours of sleep, and then realizes that he’s in the forest.

The trees of the Preserve loom over him, but it’s not sinister in the way he used to think when he trekked out into the woods to get drunk with Scott. It’s almost peaceful. The air is heavy around him, and it tastes like something he knows he doesn’t like, but can’t quite pinpoint.

There’s a light to his left. He turns and squints, but can’t make it out, so he starts to walk closer. Every movie movie he’s ever watched and the experience he has gained from such movies screams at him that he’s doing the direct opposite of what he should be. One of the more appealing options of what he should be doing being to lie down and sleep. But he doesn’t. Stiles keeps walking until he reaches the clearing where the light is, but as soon as he gets there, it goes out, cloaking the trees in black once more.

Stiles blinks. He’s at the Hale House.

It doesn’t make sense for him to be here. The county took back the land forever ago, and after the alpha pack found it and pegged it for the insanely evident pack headquarters that it was, Derek had moved into his loft downtown. He – he’s not even mad at Derek, and if he was, he’d be at the loft, smashing the minimal amount of furniture through the gigantic window and having a psychotic breakdown. He’s not, and Derek hasn’t lived here for almost a year. It doesn’t compute.

(but nothing makes sense anymore)

Stiles takes a step toward the house, bare foot crunching on leaves. It doesn’t snow in Beacon Hills. It just gets cold. Not like Minnesota cold, but enough to make Stiles wear a hat outside sometimes. But not since his hair grew out. Derek didn’t like Stiles’s new hair. He hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t have to. Stiles could tell.

He reaches into himself as he nears the porch with slow steps, trying to find the anger. He can’t. There’s just…emptiness. There’s nothing there. It doesn’t matter.

(does it?)

He wonders if he’s awake. He’s dreamed about this place before, and doesn’t remember walking to the woods. He doesn’t remember much at all, actually. He pinches himself, just to make sure.

The wood cracks a little and sinks in as he climbs the porch steps, cold, pale fingers trailing on the splintering banister. He breathes in quick, uneven breaths as he reaches the door. The faint outline of the alpha’s brand is still visible under the poor and hasty paint job Derek put over it, and Scott’s tearing at it with his claws. Stiles’s hand reaches out to graze it, and in doing so he takes a deep breath and realizes the identity of the taste in his mouth that’s been nagging him.

Ash.

Suddenly, Stiles finds the anger. It rises up from his stomach, from his core, red-hot and boiling lava and acid. He finds anger, and with it he finds betrayal, and abandonment. He finds frustration and broken trust. He finds pain, he finds sadness, he finds _hate_.

Stiles slams a fist into the wood of the door, and then the other. “This…” he gasps. “This is _your fault_!”

The taste of ash is overwhelming. He’s on fire. He reaches deeper and pulls out the darkness until it’s tangible in his hands, and beats the door with it. “You did this! This is your fault!”

He kicks the door, punches it, throws his body against it; it doesn’t budge. Stiles yells, grunts, _screams_. “ _YOU DID THIS_!” He pauses against the wood, panting.

“You’re the one,” he heaves. “You brought me into his nightmare. You. Brought. Me. _Here_! And then you just left! This is your fault. Your fault.”

Stiles falls forward onto his hands and knees, head hanging between his shoulders, breathing in deeply and smelling, tasting, feeling the ash around him. The death. His hips collapse, then his elbows. He growls, muttering under his breath, the darkness still whipping around him, and in he finds hatred; he finds loathing. “Your fault. Yours.”

(if you’re going through hell)

A sob works its way out of Stiles’s mouth, and he falls apart completely, lying on the wood of the ashy porch. It tastes like death on his tongue, but the sensation is too familiar for him to be truly bothered. Stiles curls in on himself as inhuman noises come out, and he grips his hair, trying to remember the end of the line, the end of the quote. Instead the darkness fills up his lungs, replacing hate with pain and fear, and Stiles thinks that if this is a nightmare, he wants to wake up. He just wants it to be over.

Somewhere along the line, he stills. Stiles whispers, daring sound to come out of his lips, but they only form one word. Everything else, he forgets.

“Derek.”

(if you’re going through hell…)

.

He keeps coming back here, although he doesn’t scream like he did the first time. Most of the time he doesn’t even know why he’s there, just sits and stares. Sometimes he thinks he’s waiting, but he doesn’t know what for. The thought flies away like a poorly made paper airplane, landing just a few feet away from Stiles’s grasp, but he’s too lazy to catch it. Too lazy, or too tired.

He’s been really, really tired.

His dad asked him the other day if he was sleeping. He’d scoffed and said of course, but the Sheriff knew better. Said to get some actual sleep. He’d told him that he could talk to his dad about anything, he knew that, right?

They never talk. Not even about that night. Especially not that night.

He thinks about burning the rest of the Hale House down, and then coming back during the day to see if it would be still standing. That would be a good test.

“Stiles.”

Maybe then Derek would come back.

“Stiles.”

He turns around, butt scraping against a stick. His best friend stands over him, tall and…big. Scott wasn’t so big before he got bitten by the Big Bad Wolf. A tang of envy darts through Stiles. Every time something supernatural touches Scott, he gets bigger, better, stronger. The supernatural’s touched Stiles, now, too. He just feels small.

“Stiles, talk to me.”

But there’s something different. Off. Scott’s pale, and his body is glistening with cold sweat, gleaming under the pale light of the moon, three-quarters full. His hand is half-outstretched, hesitant. There’s a look of concern on Scott’s face, but there’s something behind it, reaching deeper. Something dark.

“Stiles, c’mon, man.”

Stiles blinks. “Yeah.”

A huff of relief escapes Scott, and Stiles realizes that the werewolf’s eyes irises had bled into the red of an alpha. It should scare him, but it doesn’t. His best friend offers him a hand, and Stiles accepts it, rising onto unsteady feet. Scott doesn’t say anything, just starts leading them in the direction of home.

“Why’re you out here, Scott?” Stiles asks, thumbs worming their way into the pockets of his jeans. His eyes watch his shoeless feet as they move instead of his friend.

“Was taking a walk,” Scott says, and Stiles huffs out a laugh. Yeah. Okay. Scott hesitates for a moment before speaking, voice heavy. “Why did you come out here, man?”

Stiles flashes Scott a devious grin, the urge to laugh overpowering. He looks into Scott’s eyes, words pouring out of his mouth without a thought. “I was looking for a body.”

.

He starts calling Derek on his cell phone at ungodly hours of the day, when Stiles is sure that Derek is asleep and won’t pick up the phone. After the four obligatory rings, the automated missed call message begins, and Stiles leaves a voicemail. He does it when he can’t sleep, and doesn’t want to go walking around. Walking around has led him to the woods far too many times, and he’s sick of it. It seems to happen every other night now, or so. He doesn’t sleep much. And he leaves a lot of voicemails.

“Hey, Derek. Just calling…ya’know, checkin’ in.” he huffs out a small laugh. “The f-funniest thing happened today, Isaac started chasing this squirrel around after school, for jokes, right, but then he goes and runs right into a tree, busts open his nose, blam. There was so much blood, I mean, he started healing right away, but Allison was so scared, and Scott…I-I guess it really wasn’t that funny. Forget it.”

“–I was wondering how you’ve been, Sourwolf. You and…Cora. P-Peter’s not with you, is he? Or maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around. Lydia doesn’t like him. None of us do, I mean, he’s so creepy. Creep. I think Lydia’s scared that he’s still around, I mean, not that she shows it, girl’s a BAMF. I think she knows a lot more now. I don’t like that she does, she keeps asking me if I’m okay. Scott does too. I…I’m fine, though. I’m okay.”

“Hey, I…I was wondering when you’re gonna come back.” Stiles breathes heavily into the phone, rubbing tired, shadowed eyes with the back of his hand. “Scott says that you’re not gonna come back, but. I think.” He pauses. “You should. I…Please.”

Stiles’s choked breath goes through the receiver, throat thick from crying that night, a short bout of melancholy that had had his dad knocking at his door. “I was just…I was thinking about what my mom would think. About Scott. You. All of this. It’s just…it’s just _wrong_ , Derek, I don’t know, it’s just wrong. I think…you need to come back, Derek. Something bad is coming, I think, worse than before. I think…I think it’s already here.”

Stiles takes the phone in his hand and breathes, counting in his head down to the limit on the recording time. Just before the tone he presses his thumb down on the cancel button on his phone, deleting the message, just like he has with every other one he left before. Derek doesn’t have to hear him blabber on and complain.

He has better things to do.

.

“Mr. Stilinski.” A voice infiltrates his senses, harsh, blaring. He moans, shifting uncomfortably.

“Mr. Stilinski.”

Stiles’s mouth gapes on something soft as he rolls his head. “Five m’re minutes, Daddy.”

“ _Mr. Stilinski_!”

Stiles’s head snaps up, a strangled sound coming out of his mouth as he jumps back into awareness. His brain works on overtime to determine where he is. Classroom. School. Calculators. Math.

A short, petite, and very stern woman stands at the front of the class, her arms folded crossly over her blazer. It’s his AP Calculus teacher. He’s in his AP Calculus class.

Stiles fights the urge to moan again.

“Next time you stay up all night partying, Mr. Stilinski,” the teacher snaps. Stiles flinches visibly. “Try to catch up on your lost sleep in some other class.”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Stiles’s voice wavers. Some kid behind him snickers. The teacher grimaces.

“Now, if you all can remain alert for the next twenty minutes, I won’t have to dish out any detentions. I’m sure you can all focus on integrating derivatives for that long.”

Stiles’s voice falls to a rasp. “Yes, ma’am.” He can hear a couple jackasses behind him talking about him and laughing quietly. He can’t decide whether he feels like he’s about to start seething or completely indifferent. He stares at the clock, fingers tapping out a staccato rhythm on his desk as the time counts down. The words and numbers on the board swim in front of his eyes, swirling around and blending into each other, making Stiles rub at his eyes. As soon as the bell begins to ring he grabs his bags and bolts out of the door, ignoring the teacher shouting his name behind him.

He hurries down the hall, eyes flicking toward each and every person passing to verify their identity. Sometimes, he’s discovered, people aren’t who they look like. He spots his destination and bolts for it.

He slams into the metal next to Allison’s open locker, gasping slightly for breath. The girl jolts, startled, and then runs an exasperated hand through her hair.

“I thought you were Scott.” She gasps, triggering a smirk from Stiles. Allison looks Stiles over, frowning. “Are you okay, Stiles?”

“We need to talk,” Stiles says instead of answering. “I mean, I need to talk to you, no, I mean, you need to – c’mon.”

He grabs her arm (gently, but not as gentle as Stiles usually is) and leads her toward the library, pulling open the door and slipping stealthily inside. They walk toward the back corner, where no one is, and stop. Allison watches Stiles; he’s jittery, hands shaking more than usual, running through his hair, stuffing in his pockets, and coming out again. He stares at the books like he’s never seen them before.

“I–I have to go to French, I have class.” Allison says.

“We have five minutes, it’s fine.”

She pauses. “Stiles…”

“Listen,” he interrupts. “I need to ask you…I think…the sacrifice. I…have you been…has it done anything to you? Nightmares, hallucinations, depressing thoughts, etc.? Insomnia, maybe the incessant urge to run around and or rip out all your hair?”

Allison’s face scrunches up. “Why…Stiles, why are you asking me this?”

“Because.”

“Is it because of Scott?”

“What? No. Maybe.” Stiles takes a deep breath. “It’s important, okay?”

“Why do you–”

“I just,” Stiles’s voice is harsh, but he pulls it back. “I just need to know. If it’s the sacrifice.”

Allison shifts her weight. “It’s just nightmares, usually. A lot, actually. But…sometimes…”

“You see things?” Stiles asks, expectant.

Allison nods. “Not all the time. Just sometimes. I’ve seen my mom. My aunt Kate.”

“Your crazy aunt that Peter killed?” Stiles asks. Allison gives him a look, but nods.

“It’s not so bad,” she says. “I mean, sometimes it is, but my dad and I, we talk about it a bit. Isaac and Scott, too.”

Stiles nods, his actions nearly spasmodic. Allison bites her lip. “Stiles…if something’s going on, you can tell us, you know that, right? Any of us.”

The constant throbbing in his chest becomes louder and more painful. Stiles looks up, movements slowed. He smiles. “Yeah, I know.” He swallows. “I’m okay.”

.

Derek calls him one night just as he’s about to call and leave another unfulfilled voicemail, Stiles’s cell phone lighting up and vibrating on his desk, the familiar name flashing across the screen. Stiles takes it in his hand and stares at it, knowing that the timing on the call is deliberate, with the intention of having Stiles answer. He wants to.

Instead he stares as Derek calls three more times before stopping. Stiles leaves his phone on the table and crawls into his bed. He watches dawn come and grimaces at how peaceful it looks.

.

Stiles hums to himself as he prepares for bed, going through motions he’s had established since his mom died, plus and minus a few specific components to the routine. He’s had a couple songs stuck in his head for weeks; nursery rhymes, mostly, but sometimes others, songs that make him yearn for the piano his mom used to play when he was little. He brushes his teeth, washes his face and then falls into bed, curling covers that won’t lure him to sleep around himself. Stiles turns off the light and then flips over, looking at the cell phone he has clenched in his hand. There’s a text from Scott, but he ignores it. Scott’s not who he’s waiting for.

Stiles, miraculously, dozes off, only to snap back into awareness when the slightest sound wakes him. He sluggishly rises onto his elbow, peering at the window. The slight tapping he had heard before comes back, each tap a small scratching sound by his window. Stiles sits up, eyes narrowing. He thinks he can see a figure outside of the glass, on the roof.

“Derek?” He rasps, shifting in his bed. He squints. Stiles rubs his eyes with his fists, but when his hands fall, the figure is gone. He breathes out a sigh of disappointment, scooting back toward his pillow. Stiles is leaning back against the headboard, listening to himself breathe, when a flash of…something catches his eye.

He whips his head toward the corner of his room to see two red eyes staring back at him.

Before he can do anything the figure jumps forward, lunging halfway onto the bed and grabbing his arm in its claws. Shadows begin to blend into features, Stiles chokes out a name.

“Peter.”

Claws dig into Stiles’s forearm and the back of his neck, the alpha’s breathing somehow filling the room with intimidation and sarcasm without any words. Stiles feels his mind retreat back to the night in the parking garage, Peter’s breath heavy on his face, his claws in his arm, his words in his ear. Promising greatness. Offering the bite. Terror floods through Stiles, the two realities flashing back and forth in his mind.

Something tears in Stiles’s chest. Something red. Something dark. He thinks he knows what is is, now.

“ _NO_!” He shouts, and the darkness pulses around him, tearing, grinding, screaming. Always screaming, always burning.

Stiles sits in his bed and breathes heavily, eyes wide as he surveys his surroundings. Peter is gone. Derek is gone. Everything seems gone.

An inhuman sound rips its way out of Stiles’s throat, and he bends over, grabbing his head in his hands and desperately trying to not have a panic attack. It’s not really working, but his dad has the night shift, and no one is home.

“It’s okay.” Stiles rasps, curling in around himself. “It was just a dream, it’s okay, it was just a dream.

“It was just a dream.”

.

 


End file.
